When Broad revenge became a real tweet
AS revenges go, the one Stuart Broad enjoyed the last time England played a Test match at Trent Brdge, two summers ago, was about as sweet as they come.
From the moment, in the first match of the 2013 Ashes, Broad had stood his ground after edging Ashton Agar to slip via Brad Haddin’s gloves, the England fast bowler had been getting the full treatment from almost the entire Australian nation.
First in line was their coach Darren Lehman, who labelled the England paceman a “blatant cheat” even while overseeing his side’s series defeat.
When England travelled Down Under for a disastrous return series that winter, Broad was welcomed as “the most hated man in Australia”, a Brisbane newspaper, refusing to use his name, referred to him instead as “the English medium pace bowler”, replaced his image in photographs with the cartoon from the Ghostbuster movies and called him “the phantom menace”.
From coast to coast he saw T-shirts bearing the message: Stuart Broad Is A Sh*t Bloke.
Then, on August 6, 2015, Broad made the Aussies love him even less when he took 8-15 as England destroyed Australia for 60 in 18.3 overs, his reponse to the catch of a lifetime by Ben Stokes to dismiss Adam Voges the iconic image of England’s success in regaining the urn.
England supporters came up with a T-shirt of their own afterwards.
On it read the first entire innings summary to fit into a the 140 characters of a Tweet, as follows:
.4lbW24W.W.41nb.....W4lb.. ..11.W.2lb....4.2nb...W.........1. 1....11W..112...1lb..4..4....W1 W/3.............4..............2nb..4 W